She'll Let It Go
by Lillielle
Summary: Disclaimer: I own nothing. AU. Drabble collection. What if Elsa didn't have snow powers? What if her talents lay with something else?
1. Smoke and Embers

_Author's Notes: I had the idea to just do a bunch of random Frozen drabbles, wherein Elsa has different elemental powers. Because different powers is fun. _

"It-it was an accident," Elsa stuttered, staring at the smoking hem of her sister's nightgown in disbelief. She'd managed to put out the fire quickly, but there was still a blistered patch on Anna's legs that made Elsa cringe, and her mother and father pale.

"I know," her father said, placing a hand on her shoulder and squeezing gently. "But this is why you aren't supposed to be alone with your sister, Elsa. Remember? Conceal..."

"Don't feel," Elsa recited, as if on autopilot. "Don't let it show."

"Exactly," the King smiled, and picked Anna up. Mercifully, she was still unconscious. "Stay here, Elsa. We have to get Anna treatment before she gets worse."

Elsa nodded, pacing the floors of her bedchamber. Smoke started to wreathe her head as her footprints burnt themselves into the wood and tiny tendrils of flame flickered across her fingers.

"Conceal, don't feel," she chanted to herself. It had always been this way, as soon as the King and Queen discovered that Elsa could control fire. She'd been locked away from the beginning. She liked it that way, really. She didn't want to hurt anyone. She hadn't even known Anna existed until she'd sneaked out of her room for a bedtime snack and literally run into the younger girl. She knew it was a mistake, but it was her_sister_ and she hadn't even known she had a sister, and Anna _liked_ her, really liked her...

She should have known that it would all end up like this. Elsa's shoulders slumped as she finally curled into a corner, flames burning through the wood to either side. They'd had to reinforce her bedroom she didn't know how many times, but wood was better than metal. Wood burnt to soft splinters and ash, metal_melted_ and she was not immune to the burn of that. They'd found that out the hard way.

"Don't let it show," Elsa nearly shouted, fingers digging into her palms as another billow of smoke choked her room.

It didn't work, though. Nothing ever did.


	2. Blooming, Once Upon A Time

_Author's Notes: Warning for pregnancy and miscarriage-y bits._

_Once upon a time, there was a princess..._

Elsa always loved to grow things. When her mother went out in the fields with the common folk, sowing seeds for the new planting season, Elsa always trailed behind, bare feet squishing in the mud, her fingers dragging through the furrows left behind by the plow. _Grow,_ she whispered, and wherever she went, new life flourished.

_Once upon a time_, the Queen was pregnant again, and as the months progressed, it was clear it was not an easy one. The baby kicked and roiled in her home (Elsa and the King were convinced it was another girl, that the Queen was fruitful with Elsa's sister; the Queen was certain it was a boy. _Elsa never kicked like this!_ the Queen would laugh, with a pained smile).

One night, the Queen couldn't sleep, and as she paced the empty, moonlit hallways, she felt pain stab through her, ripping as sharp as any knife. Her scream brought the servants running, her husband not far behind, and he blanched as he saw dark blood drip down her legs. She was losing the baby, losing the son or daughter nestled so angrily inside, and the castle physician rushed her back to her bedchambers, in hopes that rest would forestall the inevitable.

_Mama?_ Elsa, wandering into the Royal bedchamber at precisely the wrong time. But when they tried to put her outside, when her father kissed her forehead and coaxed her back to bed, she shook her head and clambered onto the slippery silk sheets, and placed her hands on her mother's stomach and said _Be still,_ and no one could explain it later, and they certainly didn't understand it, but the Queen didn't lose the baby that night, or any other night, and two months later, a redheaded little girl was born, and they named her Anna.

_Once upon a time, there were two princesses, and they loved each other dearly..._

Elsa had a green thumb, that's what the royal gardeners told her amused parents. She wandered through the gardens and greenhouses, always murmuring to the plants, trailing her fingers across pots and stems and leaves, and they brightened, flowering beneath her touch. Ivy curlicued over her window, and roses opened their petals for her, leaving their thorns for her sister to prick her fingertips and trip over their roots, until Elsa scolded them.

_She's my sister,_ she whispered to the rose trellises and the swaying willow trees by the river. _Take care of her._

Plants couldn't listen, of course, everyone knew that. Elsa grew, and Anna followed. Two peas in a pod, their affectionate father always called them. Elsa, tall and coltish and always hiding behind light brown hair. Anna, short and gangly and perpetually tripping over her own feet.

Elsa was the Heir, and the Heir had certain duties, but even as her mother and father let her sit in through meeting after meeting, being indoors chafed, and she'd fidget and stare out the windows until the ivy outgrew its trellis _again_, and a royal gardener questioned if perhaps it needed a stricter pruning, and Elsa nearly threw out his shears.

When the King and Queen informed their daughters they had to attend a coronation in another country, Elsa sulked for two days and Anna cried until her face was splotchy.

_What will I do without you here? _Elsa worried, twisting her fingers in her dress. _I'm not ready, not even for a day!_

_You'll be fine, Elsa,_ her mother reassured her, tucking a tendril of hair behind her ear. _We have faith in you._

_See you in three weeks,_ and the ship set sail, but the ship did not come back. Storms lashed the country for a week straight, and when their parents' ship broke in half, Elsa could _feel_ it. She curled in the center of her floor and cried because this was one thing she could not fix, she could not fix this like a broken branch or a delayed bloom or a girl planted in her mother's womb, there was _nothing_, and Anna was the one who found her, picking her up off the floor and hugging her until their tears were spent.

_Once upon a time, there were two princesses, one older and one younger, and they were alone in the world._

_But they had each other, and that was what mattered._


End file.
